Thanks for this, Patrice.
De Soto's analysis is striking and the problems he reveals are part of
what needs to be addressed. One area where neoliberals a la Hayek have
been right is that the self-organization of individuals and small groups
is more effective than attempts at total state planning of production
and distribution. The problem is they draw from that an ideology of
abolishing the state, while in reality the state reshapes itself to
favor the self-organization of... huge corporate oligopolies whose first
rule of business is 'don't let anyone else into the market.' As I
understand from reading, the most ever done to help Egypt's rural poor
was land redistribution (with or without ownership title, I am not sure)
under the socialist Nasser. To help poor people in the Middle East and
elsewhere overcome basic problems, we need to forge a new conception of
the state as an enabler of everyday life and not as a driver of
corporate growth. Failing this, the Middle East is set to become the
ground zero of a world war marking the end of American hegemony.
Right now there is a food crisis in the world, which I am sure no one on
this list has noticed except maybe in a few specialized articles. But
people in Tunisia and especially Egypt have noticed it, to the point
where many think it is a proximate cause for the uprisings (not of
course the only one, far from it). Food availability is an issue of
global well-being (a better concept than global security). To achieve it
requires the suppression of commodity speculation and the provision of
emergency funds on the global scale, the way bail-out funds are
provisioned except, of course, only a tiny percentage of such funds
would be needed. However, none of that essential stuff is gonna work in
any country where the state does not facilitate individual and above
all, community self-organization, not just so that money can change
hands but so that vital needs can be met and communities can flourish.
Can capitalism as we know it today deliver such a solution? De Soto's
implication is that it would, if we just allowed its true nature to
shine through. Reminds me of the arguments about really-existing
communism. What we see with really-existing capitalism is the
intensification of global oligopolies on the one hand, and the
maintenance of oppressive regimes in the name of order and stability, on
the other. With Israel armed to the teeth and marauding sadistically
every year, with Iran developing a nuclear bomb, with Hezbollah showing
the world how to organize both a victorious army and an effective
solidarity system on the ground, and with the US pledged to intervene in
favor of its key allies (Israel, Saudi Arabia), it is not even sure that
a starving Egypt is required to set off the biggest war this world has
seen since the 1940s.
Voices ask, rightly of course, what does the blather on lists like this
really mean? They know it does not mean much. But we are all more or
less intellectuals, of the organic kind that Gramsci described. What we
need to do is to conceptualize and to demand a new kind of state.
Techno-fetishism is over, it was never worth anything and it has played
into the hands of the key producers of neoliberal ideology in the US and
Britain. Rather than celebrating the prowess of technology in creating
more or less failed revolutions, or alternately, moaning about one's
inability to do anything except pointlessly blather, the thing to do is
to create and demand an effective understanding of how we are going to
survive the historical crisis that is opening up right now before our
eyes, since the financial meltdown. You can do that, each one of you, in
whatever functions you occupy as an organic intellectual, and not just
in teaching or direct politicking. Because the threat is real. There is
no one-off solution. We need a people-state, operating at different
scales -- global, continental, national, territorial -- and allowing
community self-organization for survival and cultural flowering.
warmly, Brian
On 02/04/2011 07:42 AM, Patrice Riemens wrote:
>
> Mr de Soto plugs here (some will say 'peddles') his usual 'make the
> informal sector legit" message, yet it sheds an interesting light on teh
> Egyptian regime's stagnation and cronyism which is now unraveling it in
> popular revolution. It also illustrates an aspect less covered in media
> and analyses: when the throne of a tyrant is under attack, the trickiest
> party to deal with is not the tyrant him(her)self and immediate circle,
> but the rather large (and fairly anonymous) group around him/her that
> profits by its rule. Fisrt they thwart all reform - since it goes against
> their interests - and when the day of reckoning arrives, they have nothing
> to lose (unless they bolted to Abu Dhabi or the Bahamas, and had stashed
> they loot away beforehand), and will go on the rampage.
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